need a smile?

A friend just sent me this video commercial for Evian water.  If you need a smile then I suggest you watch it. Have a wonderful day!

http://www.youtube.com/v/pfxB5ut-KTs

“The happiness of life is made up of minute fractions–the little, soon forgotten charities of a kiss or a smile, a kind look or heartfelt compliment.” Samuel Taylor Coleridge

 

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Growing through life: my gift to the world

Eleanor enjoying the wheatgrass

I notice people’s gifts. And another thing that I notice, is how many times, these very obvious gifts are almost completely ignored, minimized, or even disliked by the person possessing them. Even when someone points them out, the person will often times dismiss the compliment with a comment such as, “It’s no big deal.” or “There are tons of people who are better at ‘this’ than I am.” The feeling behind all of these statements is, There is nothing special about me.

We’ve been taught that this is humility, but it isn’t. If this thought is backed by self-doubt, hatred, insecurity, or fear, it is just the other end of the egoic spectrum; one end is boastful, cocky, and falsely proud, and the other end is timid and cowering… both are ego-centric.

If we are (as I believe to be true) temples of the living God, points of Divine consciousness, individualized expressions of the Spirit of the Universe, how can we be nothing special?  You and I and everyone could not be more unique, special or gifted.

Sometimes, our gifts are so close to us that we don’t see them as gifts, and the problem with this is that these things we are ignoring, dismissing, or brushing away, are not really valuable gifts until they are given away; until they are shared.

One of my gifts is the deep desire to understand who and what I AM. Not just who Mary Muncil is in this lifetime, but the part of me that isn’t confined to this body or to the “objective” world. The me who sees and knows beyond what is apparent. I’ve always had this drive within me….but I didn’t always see it as a gift to the world, or a gift at all.

Even as a teenager, sitting on the banks of the Hudson river with my best friend, drinking way too much, involved in a continual drama (of my own making) of too many drugs, boyfriends, and stupid risks, my friend would tell me (years later) that I made her promise me, if she ever figured out what God was, that she had to let me know.

Something within me just knew that the concept of God that I was raised with wasn’t the Truth, and through my periods of fearful “devotion”, atheism, scepticism, secular humanism, anger at religious authority, indifference to religious authority, …banging my head and pounding my fists on these doors that I was told led to God, but only seemed to lead to more contraction and confusion, I never gave up my search.

I didn’t look at myself as a researcher. I thought that field was limited to scientists and inventors, but in the world spiritual thought, a researcher is what I am. I always wanted to understand a deeper truth, and felt like there was a veil across it made up of all sorts of esoteric (or downright stupid or impossible to obey) rules and regulations. But this journey, and all of the dead-ends and wrong turns, is a part of the gift that I have to share.

Tell me who you are. Tell me what you Know from living it, struggling with it, even hating it, and then tell me what you’ve learned about yourself and life. Our gifts are what we have gone through and transcended. When I’ve been through hell, and have come out more whole and more real, then I am standing in the place of the true alchemist; changing base metal (life’s struggles) into gold (freedom), not only for myself, but for anyone who wants to stand in this place with me, and this is true of us all.

I’ve always wanted to understand, and I wanted to live it, and I wanted to know how others were living it. I don’t care about theory. If you have never been in the grips of alcoholic obsession, then you probably don’t have much to tell me about how to put down a drink. If you’ve done it, and not white knuckled it (but have gone beyond it) then just being who you are, your presence, will change me… if I want to change.

We help the world by becoming more truly ourselves: by leaving behind the limited concepts of what a spiritual person should look like, say, or do, and by accepting the perfection of who we are (even when we think that we are very far from any concept of perfection).

Your unique life’s journey, who you are, through all of the pain and struggle, loss and despair, is your gift to this world. It may come most to light through music, art, writing, medicine, gardening, law, praying for others, cooking, speaking, sewing, politics, healing work, or it may not seem to have a very focused “channel” or any defined “career path”…none of this matters.

You may be the one who can walk into a room where there is a distressed animal, and just by your presence, it instantly relaxes. You may be the one who always says, “Let me hold her or him” to the mother with the fretful baby, and the baby immediately calms down. You may be the one waving to the drivers passing by while you stand (or dance!) in the road, holding the STOP SIGN, and just your smile, changes a person’s life. You may be the one who simply held a friend in your mind with a loving thought, and you found out later that this person had a radical change for the better on that same day.

Your Presence, is your present to the world.

“The only part of our religion that is real is the part we express in our daily lives. Ideals that we do not act out in practice are mere abstract theories. Actually, such pretended ideals are a serious detriment, because they drug the soul. If you want to receive any benefit from your religion, you must practice it: and the place to practice it is right here, where you are; and the time to do it is now. A writer on prayer said; “Kneed love into the bread that you bake; wrap strength and courage in the parcel you tie for the woman with the weary face; hand trust and candor with your coin you pay to the man with suspicious eyes.’ This sums up the Practice of the Presence of God.” Emmet Fox  (1881-1951)

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A crack in my shell of perception

Jack brought home this basket to put Luke’s toys in, but Fred had another idea for its use

When I was in my mid-twenties, I can remember sitting in a psychologist’s office complaining bitterly about my father, and every time this woman tried to offer me a different perspective about him; tried to help me see him in a new light, I intensified my accusations against him, giving her tons of incriminating evidence to support my case. I finally gave up on her. She just wasn’t willing to see him as the monster that he was, so I decided that I wasn’t going to waste my time in that therapy anymore.

Fast forward 20 years.

I was yet again in the process of trying to forgive my father (for him being a horrible parent), but found that I simply couldn’t make much headway. Every time I thought about him I felt deep resentment, judgement, and even disgust. My mind would not drop the story it had believed “forever”. And it had lots of proof. No one in my family said anything different.

But this time I was serious about forgiving him because I couldn’t live with that resentment anymore. …it was beginning to make me sick physically.

One day, and idea came into my head to ask someone (who had not grown up in my household, but knew my father) if they could tell me anything that was positive about him. I called up my cousin Nancy and posed the question to her, figuring it might take her some time, but  knowing that she would be very thoughtful about it, and try her best, since she has always been someone who tended to look at the positive, spiritual, and more expanded view of things.

Much to my surprise, she didn’t say she’d get back to me or that she’d have to think about it. She instantly said, “Your dad was always so much fun to be around.” And she said it with such love and happiness in her heart that I could feel she meant it. …and I could tell that she really liked him…loved him? Really? My mind instantly wanted to say, “Oh yeah, a lot of fun but he spent all the family’s money and drank and …..”

But I made myself consider a different point of view, and the shell of hatred toward him, that had been slowly calcifying around my heart since I was a child, got a little crack in it. Eventually it fell away. The old perceptions, that I felt were protecting me from getting hurt anymore, were actually prisons. Prisons of limited perception.

So many of the judgements that we hold against people, so many of our ugly thoughts, are not even our own. They are the remnants of our parents thoughts, grandparents, our social circle, society at large, religion…

If there is someone who you cannot seem to make peace with in your mind, consider asking a new question about them…maybe to someone who actually likes or loves them…and then allow yourself to ponder the reply; to consider that it might be as true as your story.

“In the musical Guys and Dolls, my favorite moment is when Vivian Blaine says to Frank Sinatra,‘The doctor thinks my cold might be caused by psychology,’and Sinatra says, ’Naah, how does he know you got psychology?’ 

Have you got psychology? Do you suffer from thinking too much? Most of my clients suffer from psychology. Their being is fine; their thinking is not. Psychiatric units are full of beautiful people suffering from ugly thinking.

The intellectual violence of the ego can be especially devastating when you feel vulnerable or low. Little self-doubts can quickly escalate into full-blown self-abuse and self-attack. Nothing has caused you more trouble than your own psychology. Nothing has hurt you as much as your own thinking.“

from the book, Shift Happens! by Robert Holden Ph.D ( a leading psychotherapist who coaches leaders in business, healthcare, politics and sports)

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Little did I know….

Fred plopped himself down next to a book on the couch (I really didn’t stage this!) and it looks like the little star is coming right out of his head!

For a month or so, my son Matt and I have been texting each other everyday with something that we are grateful for. Just short, one sentence statements like, “I am grateful for water.”  Some have also been silly, but I really look forward to these little communications. Yesterday I found myself texting, “I am so grateful to be sober.” Matt texted back, “I am so grateful that you stayed sober.”

It wasn’t hard to get sober. It was hard to drink. Right before I got sober, my life felt life a crazy roller coaster ride. My behaviour was unpredictable and erratic. My mind was in constant turmoil. I was arrogant and deeply insecure, and I was, as they say in the Anonymous programs, so very “sick and tired of being sick and tired.”

It wasn’t hard to get sober, but it was hard to wake up hung-over and embarrassed about what I partially remembered saying the night before. It was hard to try to censor myself and to not slur my words. It was hard to try to ration my drinks and after 2, forgetting my resolve and finishing the bottle. It was hard to wake up at 2 in the morning, sick and hung over and hating myself.

My sons were 4 and 8 when I stopped drinking. As bizarre as this sounds to me now, I can remember (before I got sober) thinking, “How could I stop drinking?! Life wouldn’t be any fun. And I wouldn’t even be able to join in the champagne toast at my sons weddings!” It was unfathomable that this would be completely irrelevant almost 27 years later.

I thought that life without alcohol would be boring and really dull, but that would be the price I’d have to pay for not being sick anymore. Little did I know that just the opposite would be true.

I can remember the first day that I walked into an AA meeting feeling like I didn’t know anything and for the first time in my life, not trying to hide this fact. I let myself be led. Little did I know that this would be the beginning of life for me.

“In God’s economy, nothing is wasted. Through failure, we learn a lesson in humility which is probably needed, painful though it is.” Bill Wilson (Co-founder of AA)

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the full video

I didn’t realize that the YouTube video cut out the last minute. Here is the full version.
Happy evening to all!

 

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an evening of inspiration

As many of you know, my son Tom is getting married to Lindsay Brush this summer. You don’t need to be around Lindsay for very long to realize that her family is her priority. I love that about her. When I first heard about Lindsay’s sister Kelly; her accident, and the foundation that she set up afterwards, I found it hard to believe that she was only in her 20′s.

Several weeks ago, CBS aired a segment on athletes who were giving to the world in a meaningful way, and Kelly was one of the people chosen. The 6 minute video is below.

It is inspiring beyond words, a great remedy for the “poor me’s”, and if you want to get a little glimpse into my life, you will also see our wonderful soon-to-be daughter-in-law Lindsay, and at the end, a Brush family photo which includes Kelly’s parents, her husband Zeke, and Tom.

“I never had a “why me?” moment.”Kelly Brush Davisson

(The Kelly Brush Foundation is a private 501(c)3 non-profit organization dedicated to assisting individuals with spinal cord injuries and increasing ski racing safety).

 

The link to her foundation is below

www.kellybrushfoundation.org

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and now the rest of the story

Bodhi happily watching a bird

A few months ago, I was searching the web (can’t remember why) and I came across the photo that I use as a header for this blog (Luke and Esther looking out the window together). There is something about animals looking out windows that makes me smile, and I can remember my delight the day that I saw Luke (with his huge, furry head) and Esther (sitting on the radiator so she was at his same height) both focused on something that I couldn’t see.

But the person using my photo for their piece that day, had written a story about the unhappiness of animals kept inside, and their longing to be out.

Same scenario, two different perspectives: one happy, and one unhappy (largely because of partial information about the situation). I don’t blame the person writing their story. I can see how they might come to that conclusion. It makes perfect sense. It simply isn’t the truth.

What I have come to know is that I always have partial information if I am relying solely on my conscious mind to figure things out. I always have partial information if I have a thought about myself, or anyone else, and this thought makes me feel bad. I always have partial information if I judge another as somehow less than me (or greater than me) based on my ideals, opinions or standards.

I’ve made hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands?! of snap judgements in my life. I wish I could say I don’t do that anymore, but this would be untrue. The only thing that I can do today is notice (when I am judging) how I’m feeling and when that feeling is small, uncomfortable or unhappy, I can be sure that I am seeing with partial and unclear vision.

“Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.” Albert Einstein

 

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Looking at my world

a mirror that I made from an old window

There was a time in my life when I had a negative opinion about almost everyone I knew. I can remember turning down multiple aisles in grocery stores to avoid saying hello to someone who I didn’t care for. I always had a good reason for my aversion to their being too. Sometimes it was because they didn’t say hi to me last time I ran into them. Sometimes it was because we were at a party together and I started a conversation with them but they went to get a drink and said they’d be right back, and as I waited, I saw them happily chatting with some other person. Sometimes it was because I could tell that they were avoiding me. Sometimes it was because they said something nice about my ex-husband or someone else that I was mad at. I felt very justified in my varied and sundry displeasures with people. After all, I had read that Sartre once said, “Hell is other people” and I whole-heartedly agreed, even though I didn’t know who Sartre was. He had an impressive sounding name and that was enough for me.

When I began to wake up spiritually, what I learned (to my great surprise) was that hell was not other people. Hell was my thoughts about other people. If I dreaded running into someone, it was because of the condition of my own mind; my feelings about either myself, them, or both. Hell was the state of mind I was steeped in when I judged everyone by a small and petty code of morality or behaviour. Hell was needing to make someone else wrong so I could be right. Hell was believing every negative thought, and making a story about the world to fit this thought.

Hell is an “exclusive” club where there is no room for thoughts that go beyond the small me; my fears, concerns, worries, likes and dislikes, my opinions.

I have no desire to belong to this kind of exclusive club (or any other for that matter). I want my world to become larger, more expansive, more inclusive as I grow through this life. I want my mind to be a very inclusive club with one moral code: be yourself, love yourself, appreciate yourself, and let that Love radiate out to all.

“Morality is simply the attitude we adopt towards people whom we personally dislike“. Oscar Wilde

 

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There is work for you to do today

Fred and Esther napping together…a first

This past Monday morning I woke up thinking about two friends. One was taking a short trip to the ocean, the other was running in the Boston Marathon. Both had asked me to join them, but because of my schedule, I wasn’t able to go. As it happened, my day opened up on Monday (and it was a gorgeous day) so I thought maybe I’d surprise my friend and meet her at the finish line of the marathon. I thought about the spot where I’d stood, in happy anticipation, the other years I’d been with her, and imagined her surprise as I called her name, but decided not to do it. “I decided” to track her progress on my phone instead, and spent the day doing necessary errands, took a little drive, and got back home about 4pm, somewhat confused that I hadn’t received her finishing time (I’d gotten her times at all the major points and the last one before the finish was the 30K mark and she was doing really well).

I made a bowl of popcorn and sat on the couch to watch the end of a movie that I’d started days ago, but before I turned on the video, the network news was showing the Boston Marathon scene.

My mind couldn’t grasp it. It was as if I was in a different world. They were showing the spot where I’d stood the previous years, the one I had visualized that morning… and an explosion?! A bomb?! Right there?! I started shaking as I thought about something that my mind could not possibly grasp…still can’t. All day yesterday, I felt my heart going out to the people gathered on that spot. I was unable to reach my friend but was confident that she was OK, and was most assuredly helping out others if they would let her….she’s that kind of person, but ”How can I help?” was the question going through my mind. What came to me, late in the afternoon on Tuesday was, “You cannot figure out, or make sense of this. You are here now. You are alive, and there is work for you to do in this world.”

So today I am doing what I know to do. I am first of all, appreciating Life. I can be of no help to others if I’m down so low that they need to lift me up. I was in that space Monday night and Tuesday and I had so much loving help from those not intimately involved with the incident.

Sometimes, when a tragedy strikes, we feel that we must be in despair so we can join those despairing, but we are so depleted in that state, that we have little to give. There are those despairing today. I can “join them” in my heart by feeling and seeing a more expanded view of life. This is not saying, “buck up” or “there must be a reason” or any other trite response. For me, the most helpful prayer is when I can go within and Know that we are in bodies (and in these bodies there can be terrible suffering, terrible tragedy) but we are not our bodies,…we are essentially, beyond time and space.

We truly are all part of one “Body”, one Mind, whether we are in the physical state of being or not. And so, when I am able to, I drop into that field of awareness and pray from there. It is a wonderful thing that we are all not down at the same time. This is the way we help each other; we hold a higher vision when we can, and let others hold it for us, when we cannot.

I feel that a day of appreciation might be in order. Please share your thoughts of appreciation and thankfulness if you are moved to do so, and feel free to ask for prayer if you need it.

I am very grateful for the loving community of friends gathered here today. Thank you all.

“Appreciation is the highest form of prayer, for it acknowledges the presence of good wherever you shine the light of your thankful thoughts.”  Alan Cohen

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The valley of the Universe: The field of Love

Eleanor looking for her toy

I had a dream the other night that I was supposed to marry a prince, but I had to pass a test first. I sat in the backseat of a car, trying to explain to someone that the prince didn’t know me, but that didn’t stop the driver. As we moved forward, I realized that the “test” was to say what I had learned (in life?) and I said, “What I’ve learned is that I don’t have control over anything.” and I woke up….and I knew that this was true.

All of the amazing openings, connections, opportunities, gifts, incredible people, ideas,…every “miraculous thing” that has ever been a part of my life (has come to me) was presented like a gift, for me to say yes to, or not. When I did say yes, the action that I took (if action was needed) always felt right.

There is so much advice floating around today about how we need to be “out there” pushing our ideas, peddling our wares, making a name for ourselves, becoming well-known, marketing ourselves and our “products”. The feeling behind this kind of approach to life is; if you don’t do it, it won’t get done. If you don’t push your own agenda, no one else is going to do it. And yet, I don’t find this to be the Truth. Pushy people (in my experience) push people away, just like people who calmly and deeply believe in themselves, in what they are doing, in Life Itself, draw more of that Life to them as they emanate the same.

I’m attracted to people, products, events and ideas that radiate love, kindness, warmth and expansion. I can feel this because I am a part of that larger field of energy….we are all a part of the Field of Love, of God-Consciousness, and when we remember this, we align with it and let it move us, breath us, live through us…and life begins to feel miraculous to us.

“If you are content with being nobody in particular, content not to stand out, you align yourself with the power of the universe. What looks like weakness to the ego is in fact the only true strength. …Instead of trying to be a mountain, teaches the ancient Tao Te Ching, ‘Be the valley of the universe.’ In this way, you are restored to wholeness and ‘all things come to you.” A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose, by Eckhart Tolle

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